Corinne Duyvis‘s second novel is On the Edge of Gone[Amazon | B&N | IndieBound], a young adult book that takes a familiar SF idea — the Earth has been rendered uninhabitable, and only a fraction of humanity will be able to escape on generation ships — and turns it into something that feels fresh, personal, and intense.

From the publisher’s description:

January 29, 2035

That’s the day the comet is scheduled to hit—the big one. Denise and her mother and sister, Iris, have been assigned to a temporary shelter outside their hometown of Amsterdam to wait out the blast, but Iris is nowhere to be found, and at the rate Denise’s drug-addicted mother is going, they’ll never reach the shelter in time. A last-minute meeting leads them to something better than a temporary shelter—a generation ship, scheduled to leave Earth behind to colonize new worlds after the comet hits. But everyone on the ship has been chosen because of their usefulness. Denise is autistic and fears that she’ll never be allowed to stay. Can she obtain a spot before the ship takes flight? What about her mother and sister?

When the future of the human race is at stake, whose lives matter most?

What truly made this book work for me was Denise. The story is told from her point of view, and it’s intense. You get her fear and despair, her desperation, her helplessness… It’s pretty unrelenting. Which makes sense, given the events of the book, but I admit I did something I almost never do. When I was about 2/3 of the way through the book, I had to flip to the end to see if Denise would get a spot on the ship or not.

Normally, I’m not a big proponent of skipping ahead, but in this case, knowing actually helped reduce some of my own anxiety reading the book.

I’m not autistic, but Duyvis’s portrayal of Denise felt respectful and honest. Denise is first and foremost an individual, a character not defined by autism or any other single dimension. I appreciated seeing through her PoV, her frustration at how others treat her, her struggles when she’s overwhelmed, her love for her sister, her love of cats (oh, that one scene…), not to mention things like trying to figure out how she feels about a boy, or trying to fit in with a new group.

I particularly liked Denise’s ongoing conflict between wanting desperately to secure her own safety vs. risking that safety to try to help her sister and mother. It felt very honest. We all like to imagine we’d do the noble thing, but I think most of us would feel as torn as Denise, especially given her age.

The ending didn’t work quite as well for me. Partly, it felt a bit rushed, with a lot happening and changing in a relatively short span. It also pushed Denise into a central role in a way we hadn’t really seen before, and didn’t feel like it had been completely built up. I like a lot of things about the ending; I just felt like it needed a bit more groundwork to get there.

It’s an ambitious and powerful book, one that makes you think and question and feel. Definitely worth reading, in my opinion.

I'll have a review of this one up sometime in March - I'm partnering with Disability in Kidlit for it again (without direct involvement from Corinne, of course) so there's a slight delay. I'm glad to see it's getting attention from others as well.